gold star

So today was Cal's "Gold Star Day." I know, I didn't know what that meant either. Apparently, it's this thing in his class where every kid gets a turn to lead circle time, which so far as I can ascertain involves something with pointers and calendars and talking about the letters and numbers of the week, not unlike on Sesame Street. There may be singing and hand movements somewhere in there. Oh, and by the way, your parents are encouraged to come for the morning to witness your GLORY.

Joe and I could not go to Gold Star Day.

I mean, I suppose we could have if we absolutely needed to, but it would have involved taking a day off work, and since I just started my job a few months ago (and am incidentally hoarding vacation days for maternity leave) and Joe is but a lowly serf fellow, it wasn't exactly something that seemed economical or practical to do, to take a whole day off work just to go to school for forty-five minutes. However, Cal is the last person in the class to have his Gold Star Day, and I have been observing (from the pictures that we get sent home) that everyone's parents goes to their Gold Star Day. Definitely at least one parent, oftentimes both. One kid had four relatives showed up, each with a different piece of photographic or video equipment. I think Cal would have had a fine Gold Star Day regardless of whether Joe or I showed up (he's too young to notice or remember that everyone else's parents were there for their Gold Stars--I'm hoping he'll save the comparisons and recriminations for adolescence), but the precedent that had been set certainly made me feel guilty to think about not being there.

Honestly, how can all these parents just take off work to go to school for the morning? How is that possible? Are they trying to make us look bad? It must be that either one parent doesn't work (outside of the home), one parent works part-time or has extremely flexible hours, or (also highly likely), the parents are so high up at their jobs that it doesn't even matter when they decide to take off or not. You know, like they're the Executive Vice President of Delta Airlines or something like that. Who knows. Or, more likely, they're just better parents than us, and love their kids more. Probably.

Luckily (and this was not planned, though it was fortuitous), Joe's parents are visiting us this weekend. So, like Obama sending the Clintons and his wife out to campaign for him by proxy, so were Joe's parents at school as parent substitutes. Taste great, less filling! Joe's dad even read a story to the class, which went over very well. (He's a retired school principal, so he loves that kind of stuff. Remember, the Principal is your Pal.) And Cal, after some initial shyness about having them there, ended up having a great time. So this allayed the guilt of Joe and I not being there somewhat. Not 100%, but somewhat.

Hopefully they can schedule Cal's next Gold Star Day for January, when, presumably, I'll have some time off.

Morning commute.

but he was still hungry





I think the real litmus test at work for separating out who has kids from who doesn't is seeing which people actually recognize the artwork on my scrub cap, and who just asks me, "Why do you have pictures of food on your head, and why does all the food have a hole in it?"

home improvement

We unpacked a bit after we moved, of course, but after the initial phase of unpacking of what we needed immediately (seasonal clothes, pots and pans, textbooks for work), our unboxing efforts kind of...stalled out. Sure, there were many moments where we would kick feebly at the moving boxes that still continued to line every wall, occasionally stopping to unpack an item or two before pronouncing ourselves way too tired from work, or (more often) willing the items to unpack themselves, but after a while, we started to get used to living in a shantytown, which is perhaps the most dangerous position of all. However, it was starting to get embarrassing, so these past few weekends, we've been making a little more serious effort at home improvement. Our bedroom and closets are still a disaster, but the first floor is starting to look almost like reasonable adult people live there.




(Click here to read notes on this photo.)

It is still decorating on the cheap, though. The bookcases are from Ikea (ah, the Billy bookcase--what medical student doesn't have you in some corner of their apartment?), as is most of our new furniture, with the exception of the 3-piece couch set, which is from Jennifer Convertibles. I am very happy about the posters though, which were designed by Amy Martin and which I ordered some time ago. They are supposed to be time travel agency posters, and I think they are just adorable. I would eat them if I could. And no, I'm not shilling per se, but since they are being sold as a fundraising item for 826LA, a non-profit engaged in efforts to support the creative and expository writing of grade-school-aged children (as well as their teachers)--so what if I'm shilling?




I suppose I could have gotten these professionally framed, but that would have cost a bundle, so what I did instead was go to my local art supply store and get a cheap set of poster frames that were a couple of inches too large in either direction. Then I bought some matting board and had the scruffy art student who worked there (and who was questionably sober) cut the matting board to size to fit into the frames. I stuck the posters on the matting with My Friend double-sided tape, quickly sandwiched the whole thing into the frames before they fell apart, and voila! A touch of class! Sure, they're crappy frames, and a sadly amateur job at mounting the posters (especially the dog hair behind the clear plastic that I could not for the life of me remove before I just gave up), but stand a safe distance away and they don't look half bad.

I have a bunch of photos that I want to get up as well, but that's a job for another weekend and a second wind.